Dark Fall

Suspicion

A while back, Jesse and everyone else in the group who had witnessed Alex’s fight against the alien had noticed that the way Alex fought the alien was a little unworldly.

Not only that, but they saw that in mid-air, something had popped out from his body and helped him move around which was definitely not something a human was capable of doing.

This especially frightened Jesse who was already traumatized by largely-built people like Alex. He was previously attacked by a couple of thugs before he was suddenly chased and nearly killed by an alien.

Whatever Alex was, he didn’t like it nor did he want to be anywhere near him. However, during their escape, Maxie stopped them and somehow managed to convince Diane and Josh to return for him.

Jesse was only playing it like he was convinced by he was greatly suspicious and wary of Alex who, from his previous feat, was anything but human.

Maxie and the rest had also seen the strange abilities of Alex though they had only seen it in the dark so they weren’t too sure just what it was he actually did, Maxie was convinced that their chances of survival were higher if they stuck with him.

He first needed to figure out how to cater to Alex and hopefully convince him to travel with his group and thankfully, it didn’t take much.

With an alien-slaying hero by their side, Maxie naturally felt much safer than being on his own or with his helpless group of survivors who couldn’t even do anything but run away from the threat, and even then, they had nearly died if not for Alex’s intervention.

Jesse’s suspicious attitude was rather subtle so Maxie and Diane hadn’t discovered it yet, but Alex could already feel it and Scourge informed him of it after it had scanned all of the people in his party.

[This man, he will betray you at the drop of a hat if he has to. I suggest you stay wary of him.]

‘Wary of him? He’s only human, what can he do to threaten us?’

[You never know, Alex. I’m just telling you to be mindful. If you have to, remember that you can just abandon this misfit bunch of humans.]

‘...I’ll naturally prioritize our survival, but if I can, I want to help them and anyone else we meet along the way.’

[Why are you acting like this? It’s not like you owe them or anyone else anything.]

Alex remained silent for a moment before he sighed and replied to Scourge in his mind, ‘My girlfriend, Claire, the one you killed, was studying to become a doctor. She wanted to grow up helping people so in her memory...I want to try doing the same, especially now that I’ve got these abilities that allow me to do that.’

[...How virtuous, but let me tell you one thing, I did not kill the female that was with you.]

“...What?”

“You’re up, Alex? Are you ready to go?” Maxie said from the side which pulled back Alex from his internal conversation with Scourge. “Oh, you’re up, Maxie. Any luck with that radio?”

Maxie sighed and said, “I’m an astrologist, not a mechanic or tech person...There’s only so much I can do but I don’t think the radio’s the problem. It’s working just fine but it’s not picking up any radio waves…”

“...The aliens must be hindering all forms of communication somehow. Maybe it’s a device or something so maybe if we get out of its range, we can use the radio or our cellphones again.”

“Hmmm, you’re certainly a smart guy. From your age, are you a college student?” Maxie asked.

Alex only chuckled in response before saying, “...I was, but I’m not that smart.”

The only reason why he was able to share these farfetched but rather plausible theories and assumptions with Maxie like he knew what he was talking about, was thanks to Scourge providing him with the intel about how the aliens would be moving and their attack plans.

According to Scourge, there were 3 phases to the aliens’ invasion. The first phase was called ‘The Drop’. This phase was currently in motion with the advance alien assault team making contact with Earth and destroying all of the majorly populated areas of the world.

A few devices were used to complete this phase and one of them was a wide-area jamming device that should be installed by the alien right as they landed and secured a safe area in this case, Central Park.

Communications were still working during the first few hours of the invasion but once this jamming device was erected, all radio waves and cellular signals of any kind were made useless.

With communications down, the aliens were able to successfully complete the first phase of their invasion without any hindrances by Earth’s nations and since it took longer for the nations to mount a counterattack, it gave them an adequate amount of time to set up a forward command base on all their major landing sites.

However, by this time, the defense forces of Earth had at least managed to create a perimeter around the cities that were attacked after they rescued and evacuated the citizens that were caught in the aliens’ invasion.

The countryside areas were the only places that were safe from the aliens’ invasion because those places weren’t as densely populated as the cities where the aliens specifically targeted in their invasion’s first phase.

“Alright, I guess we should get going now, yeah? I’m sure everyone’s well-rested by now,” Maxie declared as they were having breakfast. The group had rested until it was morning but after all of the hellish experiences they had gone through, the few hours of rest didn’t do much for their mental fatigue.

They had traveled for a few hours southward before taking a rest in an abandoned house but it was quite odd since even until now, they hadn’t met any other survivor though there were traces of people ransacking the markets, shops, and convenience stores.

Alex had devoured an alien last night so he wasn’t feeling too hungry but he still ate with the rest of them. 

He walked out of the house and sighed after seeing the ‘dead’ atmosphere around him. It was his first morning since the apocalypse and he was sort of missing the rambunctious atmosphere that was usually the norm every morning in Manhattan.

The cars used to run up and down the road but now they were only parked on the side or were wrecked in the middle of the street. The people that used to fill up the streets were nowhere in sight as the debris of fallen buildings, abandoned belongings and other things littered the streets.

Alex stared into the empty space imagining how things were before until someone interrupted his thoughts and called out to him.

“Alex, are you done eating?”

Alex turned around and noticed that it was Diane who asked him the question. He nodded at her before asking in return, “Is everyone ready to move now?”

“Yes, we’ve all finished eating and are ready to move.”

“Good, we should get going quickly. We don’t know what might have happened at the evacuation site. If we’re lucky, it might still be receiving people and evacuating them outside of the city.”

“Everyone else is just getting ready to move but unfortunately, my father was injured yesterday so we’re trying to find something to help him move.”

“...Let me see if I can do something about it.”

Alex stepped past Diane and walked into the house. Inside, he could see that Maxie was trying to make-shift crutch for the man but it wasn’t working out too well.

“Oh, Alex, you done eating? Just give me a few minutes and we’ll be ready to move out.”

“Let me see his injury.”

“Hm? O-Okay.”

Alex didn’t wait for Maxie’s approval before he gently pushed him out of the way and began inspecting Jesse’s injury. 

During yesterday’s escape, no one really paid any attention to their bodies and adrenaline was constantly pumping through their bodies so they hadn’t noticed any injuries that they may have been suffering.

Now that they were able to take a breather and inspect themselves, Jesse finally realized that he had a severe injury on his leg.

Alex used his [Analyze] ability and made a perfunctory gesture of gently touching the man’s injured leg. He was able to see that although his bone wasn’t broken, there was a great deal of swelling around his left ankle and foreleg.

“Well, on the bright side, your leg isn’t broken but there’s a great deal of swelling so moving it is nigh impossible.”

There was a lot of dead cells already and if it was any other person who made the diagnosis, they’d tell Jesse that he’d have to amputate his leg but Alex only needed to use his [Drain] skill on him and he’d be able to completely heal it in only a matter of seconds, however, Alex didn’t do that.

Instead, he opened his bag and took out some gauze and bandages that were specially modified using his biomaterial that had the effects of his [Drain] skill. He had prepared a few of these things last night when everyone went to sleep as he swiftly was testing his new skill.

It was a very versatile healing skill and despite its rather intimidating name, it was able to heal pretty much any injury as long as it wasn’t too severe. Jesse’s injury could be healed quite easily if he directly used the skill but didn’t want to look too suspicious to the group so instead, he took out the things he prepared last night.

The gauze-looking item was actually just his biomaterial extract that was imbued with his [Drain] skill and it worked by draining the precious nutrients inside the extract to heal the area that it was spread on.

The bandages had the same effect but it was only there to cover up the visible effects of his [Drain] skill.

Jesse was still wary against Alex but at this moment, he had to receive his treatment because the pain was killing him. Once the gauze was applied to his wound and it was properly bandaged, the cooling effect he felt immediately alleviated the pain until he couldn’t feel it after a few minutes.

Alex waited and counted down how quickly the gauze and bandages worked on the injury and counted to around a minute and a half. It was incredibly effective but he wasn’t going to tell Jesse or anyone else that the injury was healed already.

He grabbed the crutch that Maxie was trying to make and completed it himself in a jiffy. He handed it over to Jesse and helped him up before saying, “Be careful with your leg. I’ve only applied some medicine to it but once we arrive at the evacuation site, you should get it checked.”

“Y-Yeah...thanks…”

“Let’s get going then. The quicker we get to the evacuation site, the better.”